Bill Desowitz takes a look at the innovative "Sound as Music" in 'Blade Runner 2049' in indieWire.

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For the first time, Villeneve had the schedule and budget to prep sound design for “Blade Runner 2049.” He liked the idea of picking up the thread of the original movie, in which Vangelis’ synthesized score was utilized for strange atmospheric sounds as well. “There were a lot of ambiences that sounded very musical, and, at the same time, music that sounds like sound design,” the director said about his sequel.

Sound designer Theo Green came to the shoot in Budapest and recorded a library of sounds, including rain and snow. However, there wasn’t sufficient rain, so he grabbed more in L.A. during post. And snow proved challenging at times. “There were so many iterations of how the snow should sound,” he said. “But we played with the idea of hearing individual flakes falling at the end, and one of the ways we achieved that was by filling a bath with globs of shaving foam.”

For the brutalistic-looking Spinner driven by Ryan Gosling’s K, Green experimented with an old spinning top that hummed. But that was too cutesy so Green went with the more bizarre bullroarer, an aboriginal string instrument, that blended with the engine. He used the top for the sound of the Spinner’s pilot fish drone."